The city says it legalized 60 percent of itself for new housing — so let's talk about the 40 percent still locked out, and whether anyone can actually pull a permit. This is San Francisco Politics and Urbanism Daily — Friday edition. Today: the gap between what's legal and what actually gets built. And the gap between Lurie's ribbon-cutting and what you face at the planning counter when you're just trying to open a restaurant. We'll walk through Housing for All — the city's tool for actually delivering the Housing Element — and where the bottleneck really sits. Mark, you've got a verdict to render. Three days in. I've earned it. Quick decoder for newcomers: the Housing Element is the state-mandated blueprint for how many homes SF has to plan for. The Family Zoning Plan is the rezoning that's supposed to make it real. Right, and 60 percent coverage sounds big until you ask which 60. If the legalized parcels are the ones nobody was ever going to fight over, that's paper compliance. So what's in the missing 40 — the west-side, working-family-relief side, or the easy side? That's the number I want pressed today. Show me the 40 percent, and I'll tell you whether this is reform or a victory lap. And then there's the small-business side of SF Planning's own site. Which basically reads: you may need a permit — come to the counter. That's the official answer to 'where do I start?' Come. To. The counter. Not exactly the First Year Free energy from the ribbon-cutting this week. The portal announcement and that counter feel like two different cities. One has a press release. The other has a line and a clipboard. HCD — that's the state's housing department — flagged development-by-negotiation as the core disease two and a half years ago. Does Housing for All cut that down, or just layer process on process? That's the test. Its stated goals talk about improving permitting — but faster intake doesn't help if the cost wall just moves down the line. So lay out the verdict. What would a real answer actually have to include? Start with the hard 40 percent rezoned, not the leftovers. Then give us by-right approval that ends the negotiation culture. And make a small-business path that doesn't end at a counter. Anything less is theater with a nicer lobby. And — credit where it's due — Housing for All at least gives us a named program to hold to that standard. We'll be checking the receipts. From San Francisco Planning Department:
As prices skyrocket, teachers, first responders, service workers, and those who keep the City running have been forced to leave their neighborhoods. San Francisco's diverse communities, particularly American Indian and Black communities, continue to decrease, while the number of unhoused residents remains alarmingly high.
Housing for All is billed as making the Housing Element 'a reality.' Fine. But HCD — that's the state Department of Housing and Community Development — flagged development-by-negotiation as the core disease two and a half years ago, when they certified that very Element. So three days into picking this apart, here's my demand: does Housing for All actually cut the negotiation, or is it another layer of process bolted on top of the process? Because the page says 'improve permitting' — that's an intake promise. Intake isn't the cost wall. Just to pin down the timeline: the Housing Element was adopted in January 2023, and it's an eight-year plan running through 2031. Housing for All is the Mayor's Office program for carrying it out. And I'll note the framing the Planning Department leads with: teachers, first responders, service workers priced out. That's the constituency they're putting front and center — at least on the webpage. Right, and that's the test. If a plan names service workers but only streamlines the parcels nobody fights over, it's a brochure plan. Show me the working-class units on the contested blocks. San Francisco just passed this big rezoning called the Family Zoning Plan — but I keep hearing that legalizing more apartments doesn't automatically mean more apartments actually get built. What's going on there? So the Family Zoning Plan, which Mayor Lurie signed into law in December after more than three years of process, is basically a citywide rewrite of what you're allowed to build and where. Per SF Planning, it covers about 60% of the city and raises density limits, including six- to eight-story buildings on certain commercial corridors. The state is requiring San Francisco to zone for roughly 36,000 new homes by 2031, and this plan is the city's answer to that mandate. The problem is the city's own chief economist ran the numbers and projected the plan would yield only about 14,600 additional new homes — less than half the state's requirement — and over roughly twice the required timeframe, per reporting from the SF Standard. Planning officials have also been telling nervous neighbors the rezoning won't trigger a construction boom, because even after you legalize a building, the math still has to work: financing costs, construction labor, fees, and San Francisco's slow permitting process all sit between a zoning change and a shovel in the ground. So you get this strange political posture the SF Standard captured well: the city says the plan can satisfy the state, while also telling neighborhoods, don't worry, you won't transform overnight. And if the city's own analysis says it falls short of the state's goals, what's the actual legal exposure here — can Sacramento or someone else force San Francisco's hand? That pressure is already showing up in court. YIMBY groups filed suit in February arguing the plan doesn't comply with state housing law and won't hit state targets, while a separate coalition of neighborhood and small business groups sued a month earlier arguing it goes too far, per KQED. So the plan is being litigated from both directions at once, which tells you where the fight has moved: whether the zoning changes are legally strong enough to unlock the construction pipeline San Francisco needs. Watch whether the city strengthens the plan under legal pressure, or whether those lawsuits slow implementation and give opponents another tool to stall. SF Planning writes:
If you are planning to start, renovate, expand a small business, or change the type of business operating at an existing business location, you may need a permit. Depending on the business type and zoning district of the property, your project may be approved and the permit may be issued at the Planning Counter.
So Lurie cuts the ribbon on First Year Free this week, and then you go to the SF Planning small-business page to actually start something, and the official answer is — 'you may need a permit.' May. The plan, if you want to call it a plan, is: gather your business name, your address, look up your own zoning on the Property Information Map, and then email pic@sfgov.org or just show up at the counter. That's the whole on-ramp for somebody trying to open a restaurant. To translate — PIC is the Planning Information Counter, and yeah, the page's headline question is literally 'Where do I start?' Not a confidence builder when the page itself can't quite tell you. It does list the Office of Small Business for grants and eligibility. But Mark's point stands — the default answer to a first-time applicant is still 'come downtown and ask in person.' And that's the charter-as-obstacle argument in one webpage. We spent the week asking whether City Hall's just spinning wheels on portal announcements — here's the proof. The portal exists; the counter is still the real machine, and the counter says 'depends.' If you follow San Francisco politics, you'll want the statewide picture too. Check out California Governor's Race, with daily 2026 coverage of candidates, polling, debates, fundraising, and policy — more than horse-race takes. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
You'll find links to everything we covered today in the show notes. So if a story caught your ear, you can go straight to the source and spend a little more time with it.
That's San Francisco Politics and Urbanism Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.